My roommates and I have been having trouble with our 10 gallon, freshwater community tank. Its kind of a long story and alot of these dates are estimations, except for the length of time the aquarium has been around. I got some advice today from the guy at petco, but I dont really trust it. I will try to give a timeline of our events. It will be a long post and I appreciate any help. (as do my remaining fish)
10 weeks ago we set up our 10 gallon aquarium my roommate got from a friend who was being shipped overseas. He gave us filter, gravel, decorations, tank, lid, etc, (no fish).
My roommates don't care too much about the details of aquariums they just wanted to fill it with water and put fish in it. But I researched a little bit and learned a little bit about cycling. Since we apparently had seeded bacteria colonies from the guy, I expected little to no cycle so we started off with 4 guppies, 2 male 2 female.(I know, bad ratio)
After 5 days I took a water test to the pet store, not good results, I started regretting not doing a fishless cycle. But 10 days after that, the next water test was perfect and all fish appeared fine.
As it turns out, one of the guppies we bought was pregnant and gave birth to about 14 little fry about 3 weeks after the tank was set up. About a week after we saw the fry, we added a shrimp(not sure what kind) and a panda cory catfish.
All good for about 10 days. Then one weekend both of the female guppies died in about a 4 day span. I thought it might be due to them being constantly harassed by the 2 males, so they got stressed and sick or something.
We then added 3 neon tetras(planned on getting about 6, but wanted to take it slow), the first one died day one, the other 2 died within 72 hours. At this point the fry were also pulling a vanishing trick and we were down to about 10.
I started bumping up the water changes from 25% every 10 days or so to 50% twice a week.
Despite the frequent water changes we lost a male guppy about week 6/10. He sat on the bottom of the tank one night and was found half eaten in the clutches of the shrimp the next day. Thats the other thing, my roommates accuse Cornelius(our shrimp), of killing all the fish. I dont see how a shrimp can kill a healthy fish so I think he is attacking when they are sick or already dead. But every time a fish dies it is found half eaten.
Week 7/10 we went and bought a pleco because there is an outbreak of brown algae all over the tank, it happened in what seemed like a couple days and we were hoping our new friend Jose' the pleco would clean that. (I could put him in my friend's 80 gallon when he gets bigger) We also bought 2 platys, a sunset colored one we named Ginger and a red and black one named Aztec warrior. Aztec warrior died about 4 days into being in the tank and the pleco died a day or 2 later. Before the pleco died, he had mysterious wounds on one side of his body like a bad scrape or something. Dont know how they got there. And by this time we are down to 6 fry.
Anyways that was about 2 weeks ago. But 2-3 days after we lost Jose', our last remaining male guppy we got in the very beginning died one night. Right around the same time, our last Platy Ginger had an outbreak of ich.(7-10 days after being introduced to the tank)
So we go to the pet store today and the guy says its because livebearers aren't that hardy, and that we needed to get more hardy fish. So we ended up bringing home 2 zebra danios. The Platy we call Ginger is being quarantined in a 5 gallon bucket getting medicine until his or her ich goes away because the guy said ich medicine would kill Cornelius, our shrimp, who has doubled in size, shed his shell 3 times, and is now about 3 inches long from eating all the dead fish.
So our fish count as of now is 6 baby guppies, 2 zebra danios, cornelius the shrimp, a panda cory and the sunset Platy who is in the hospital bucket. I just dont understand why all of the other ones died when our tank is completely cycled. It was weird how some of the guppies lived 7-9 weeks and suddenly died. My roommates accuse cornelius of attacking the fish but I dont buy it.
Our tap water is really hard but the pet store guy said thats not a problem. I was thinking of cutting new water with half distilled water to soften it up. I just added a little salt to hopefully eliminate any ich.
We are upgrading to a 29 gallon tank in about a month just a matter of getting some money together. I do water changes about 50% every 5 days now. Any ideas as to why our fish keep dying? Are platys and guppies really sensitive? Sorry for the long read any help is greatly appreciated.
Added: we do use dechlorinators and are still having a brown algae problem. I just wipe it off the glass now because it starts to make the glass look all cloudy.
10 weeks ago we set up our 10 gallon aquarium my roommate got from a friend who was being shipped overseas. He gave us filter, gravel, decorations, tank, lid, etc, (no fish).
My roommates don't care too much about the details of aquariums they just wanted to fill it with water and put fish in it. But I researched a little bit and learned a little bit about cycling. Since we apparently had seeded bacteria colonies from the guy, I expected little to no cycle so we started off with 4 guppies, 2 male 2 female.(I know, bad ratio)
After 5 days I took a water test to the pet store, not good results, I started regretting not doing a fishless cycle. But 10 days after that, the next water test was perfect and all fish appeared fine.
As it turns out, one of the guppies we bought was pregnant and gave birth to about 14 little fry about 3 weeks after the tank was set up. About a week after we saw the fry, we added a shrimp(not sure what kind) and a panda cory catfish.
All good for about 10 days. Then one weekend both of the female guppies died in about a 4 day span. I thought it might be due to them being constantly harassed by the 2 males, so they got stressed and sick or something.
We then added 3 neon tetras(planned on getting about 6, but wanted to take it slow), the first one died day one, the other 2 died within 72 hours. At this point the fry were also pulling a vanishing trick and we were down to about 10.
I started bumping up the water changes from 25% every 10 days or so to 50% twice a week.
Despite the frequent water changes we lost a male guppy about week 6/10. He sat on the bottom of the tank one night and was found half eaten in the clutches of the shrimp the next day. Thats the other thing, my roommates accuse Cornelius(our shrimp), of killing all the fish. I dont see how a shrimp can kill a healthy fish so I think he is attacking when they are sick or already dead. But every time a fish dies it is found half eaten.
Week 7/10 we went and bought a pleco because there is an outbreak of brown algae all over the tank, it happened in what seemed like a couple days and we were hoping our new friend Jose' the pleco would clean that. (I could put him in my friend's 80 gallon when he gets bigger) We also bought 2 platys, a sunset colored one we named Ginger and a red and black one named Aztec warrior. Aztec warrior died about 4 days into being in the tank and the pleco died a day or 2 later. Before the pleco died, he had mysterious wounds on one side of his body like a bad scrape or something. Dont know how they got there. And by this time we are down to 6 fry.
Anyways that was about 2 weeks ago. But 2-3 days after we lost Jose', our last remaining male guppy we got in the very beginning died one night. Right around the same time, our last Platy Ginger had an outbreak of ich.(7-10 days after being introduced to the tank)
So we go to the pet store today and the guy says its because livebearers aren't that hardy, and that we needed to get more hardy fish. So we ended up bringing home 2 zebra danios. The Platy we call Ginger is being quarantined in a 5 gallon bucket getting medicine until his or her ich goes away because the guy said ich medicine would kill Cornelius, our shrimp, who has doubled in size, shed his shell 3 times, and is now about 3 inches long from eating all the dead fish.
So our fish count as of now is 6 baby guppies, 2 zebra danios, cornelius the shrimp, a panda cory and the sunset Platy who is in the hospital bucket. I just dont understand why all of the other ones died when our tank is completely cycled. It was weird how some of the guppies lived 7-9 weeks and suddenly died. My roommates accuse cornelius of attacking the fish but I dont buy it.
Our tap water is really hard but the pet store guy said thats not a problem. I was thinking of cutting new water with half distilled water to soften it up. I just added a little salt to hopefully eliminate any ich.
We are upgrading to a 29 gallon tank in about a month just a matter of getting some money together. I do water changes about 50% every 5 days now. Any ideas as to why our fish keep dying? Are platys and guppies really sensitive? Sorry for the long read any help is greatly appreciated.
Added: we do use dechlorinators and are still having a brown algae problem. I just wipe it off the glass now because it starts to make the glass look all cloudy.
